Balloons are commonly used as festive decorations to signify the celebration of some important event or anniversary. Balloons are universally recognized as a sign of happiness and celebration. It is therefore commonplace to purchase one or more balloons to give as a gift when celebrating a significant occasion.
Helium-filled balloons and other balloons inflated with gases that make them buoyant under normal atmospheric conditions are by far the most popular type of balloon. Such balloons are by perceived necessity sold to consumers already inflated with the buoyant gas because most consumers to do not possess means to inflate them. These inflated balloons have a limited life span, owing to the tendency of the balloons to deflate over time as the buoyant gas leaks from the interior of the balloon to the exterior, either through the inflation orifice or through the balloon material itself. Also, inflated balloons are very bulky and fragile, exhibiting explosive decompression if damaged in any way.
Because of the limited life span and the bulky and fragile nature of inflated balloons, it is not practical to send them through the mail. The cost of mailing is prohibitive due to the size of the balloon, and the odds of the balloon arriving at its destination inflated are small, it being likely that the balloon will deflate during transit due to leakage or damage. For the same reasons, it is generally not practical to gift wrap balloons and give them as presents.
Because of these limitations in past balloon technology, it was generally impractical or infeasible to send an inflated balloon to someone through the mail or to give balloons as gift-wrapped presents due to their bulky nature and due to the delay between sending or wrapping and receipt.
In response to this problem, I invented the self-triggering inflatable balloon device described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,579,813, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein in its entirety.
As shown in FIG. 1, the self-triggering inflatable balloon device 10 of my U.S. Pat. No. 5,579,813 includes a box 12 having a lid 14, with a balloon 18 contained therein in an initially deflated state. The device 10 includes a container 20 filled with a compressed gas. In a preferred embodiment, the container 20 is a metal cylinder filled with helium gas. The cylinder 20 is prevented from moving within the box 12 by securing it to the interior thereof by any suitable means, such as by means of U-clips 22.
Gas is prevented from escaping the cylinder 20 by means of a valve 24 connected to an end thereof. The other end of the valve 24 is coupled to an opening in the balloon 18. The valve 24 includes an actuating handle 26, which maintains the valve 24 in a closed state when in the position shown in phantom. However, rotation of the actuating handle 26 through 90.degree. (in a clockwise direction as viewed in FIG. 1) is operative to place the valve 24 in an open state. In the open state of the valve 24, the compressed gas held within the cylinder 20 is free to flow through the valve 24 and into the balloon 18, thereby expending the balloon 18. The amount of gas within the cylinder 20 and the pressure thereof is chosen such that the balloon 18 will become substantially fully inflated upon the opening of the valve 24.
The actuating handle 26 of the valve 24 is coupled to a member 28, such as a wire, string or the like, which is coupled at its other end to the underside of the lid 14. The wire 28 is threaded through an anchor point on the interior of the box 12, such as through the double pulley 30. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that when the lid 14 is lifted in a vertical direction, it places tension on the wire 28. This tension is transferred to the actuating hand 26, and causes the actuating handle 26 to be rotated to its open position as the lid 14 is lifted. At this point, the balloon 18 automatically inflates by means of the pressurized gas escaping from within the cylinder 20. Once the balloon inflation process has begun, it cannot be stopped or reversed by attempting to close the lid 14. The self-triggering inflatable balloon device 10 is illustrated in its inflated state and the actuating hand 26 of the valve 24 is illustrated in its open state in the view of FIG. 1.
In practice, I have found that the operation of the valve 24 by movement of the handle 26 creates an undesirably high level of resistance to the opening of lid 14. There is therefore a need for a valve for use in a self-triggering inflatable balloon device that does not create an undesirably high level of resistance when opening the box lid. The present invention is directed toward meeting this need.